Graduates:
As with my other submission on Writers Club, this one has oodles of Sanskrit, but I hope it's still enjoyable for everyone. Thanks for all you do!
Graduation
(In this Monody the Author bewails the separation of learned Friends, having graduat'd the third year at Sri Rupanuga Paramarthika Vidyapitha, Mayapura Dhama, 2014. And by occasion foretells the ruin of corrupted societal misleaders, then in their height.)
Yet once more, bitter Nimba, and once more
O Banyan proud, with creepers ever-near,
I circumabulate your holy brood,
And with heavy hand crude,
Sever your leaves to present a garland dear.
Too early, yet this sad occasion here
Impels me to truncate your growth anew:
For graduation's here, here in no time,
Graduation, which stole away all cheer:
Which devotee won't raise a cry and hue?
Having studied the sastras all the time,
They can't just drift away into the air
Unsung, and turned out to the wilderness,
Before offering a beverage of lyric tear.
Begin then, denizens beyond this shell,
Which being lowdown has but death to bring,
Begin sweet sankirtan with voice and string.
So with hope against hope, to kind induce,
The Vaisnavas clues.
With mercy glances, give lessons to learn,
Needing sanga we burn,
Your sunlight dispell this confusion cloud.
For we all came by compassionate will,
Fed the same cows upon Govardhan Hill.
Together, though far, our services rear'd,
Benath Suryadev, Hailed the eye of morn.
We worked our fields, and all together heard
When sandhya-arati blows his conchshell horn,
Refreshing our hearts with katha at night,
Oft' times till the ev'n-starre, which rose bright
Toward svarga's feet retreated from his heel.
Meanwhile bhajans glorified Krishna's flute,
With khol-kartal to boot,
Grey Langurs dashed, leaving fruits all unpeeled
To that kirtan; they wouldn't miss a song,
And the oxen would oft' times sing along.
O but the heavy change, graduation
Graduation, to devastation turn!
O Srivasangan, Godruma, Goshal,
With tulsi bushes, and cintamani stone,
All these, as echoes mourn.
The coconut and countless date palms, green,
It's like they've never been
Decorating the courtyards and walkways.
As bloody painful as the mosquitoes,
Or Ringworm's aureole, dolorous face,
Or heatwaves leaving only madness to wear,
'Till the first thunder glows;
Such, friends, is your leaving us behind here.
Where were you Sarasvati, dark and deep
When these singers and students flew from us?
For neither were you on Ajodhya's steep
Where your lotus, and famous Swan lie,
Nor on the chakra top of Chandroday,
Nor even next to Ganga's winding stream:
But what's the use to dream?
Even if you were, what would it have done?
What could Laxmi herself whom all adore,
Laxmi herself, fortune cancala spun
Who casts her Durga shadow, She hell bent
When misers build castles intended to soar,
Their ghastly limbs down Vaitarani rent,
Dead 8 million times just to come here once more.
Oh God! What's the point in devoted care,
To stand within the light and yet dismayed,
And staunchly follow our acaryas' cues,
What more relief than to fondly refuse,
Instead to dance with Gaia in the glade,
Lost in the tendrils of green and smoke there?
Recognition attracts the pious man's gaze
(A shadow cast by the lamplight behind)
To pass austere nights and hardworking days;
But when we expect the reward to find,
And patiently wait for its shining rays,
Comes Yamaraja with th' entropic shears
And slits the cord of life. And then the praise.
Surya repli'd, and warm'd my deafen'd ears;
The plant of fame grows in no mortal soil,
Nor from the gem nor oil
reflecting th' world, nor in flattering lies,
But only in the reddish lotus eyes,
That always see Krishna in Vraja's grove;
As His flute song conducts their every deed,
His is the fame toward which you should speed.
O Fountainhead Krishna, Thou nectar flood,
Godmother Ganga, from Your toe proceeds,
You Devadeva, we have understood:
By our thoughts words and deeds,
Next I listened to Varunadev's plea
Which acquitted him free,
He searched the waves and questioned Vayu's winds,
What has caused the graduates to be twain?
From gliding aquatics to lofty wings
Skirting the sky and earth in double glory
They knew not the story,
Then Great Garuda the defense brings,
That no ill wind had from the sky dome stray'd,
Nor from venomous serpents in the brine,
Then gave his conjecture: We we're afraid.
Perhaps that foolish and deceptive mark,
Irresolute determination dark,
Is troubling those sorry heads of thine.
Next spake Jalangi, Sarasvati's flow,
Her shores bamboo forests, and bowers hedge,
Bedecked with temple rims, and on the edge
Like the blue lilly flower: Rare to know.
Who has the answer on which we can pledge?
Then, first and last to show,
That Pilot residing in inner space,
Conchshell disc club and lotus bourn amain
(Narada Muni warbl'ing His refrain)
He spoke these words, all ignorance to break:
Gladly I could've trad'd for you who train,
Many of those who for some power's sake,
Don tilak to dhoti as die-cast mould.
No other reason this to undertake,
But being first to taste a sponsor'd feast,
And elbow aside the intended guest.
Blind mouths! Drink in the youth, spit out the old.
Taking only the belly of the priest,
And their shephard's hooks belie triune prongs!
What do they care? Why keep them? They are dead;
And when they scat their jazzy bhojan songs
With Ibanez Double Axe tragic flaw,
The devotee can only scratch his head,
And freezing his heart not daring to thaw,
Numbed inwardly, else the contagion spread:
Fortunate are those who escape the maw,
Where countless are glut, that they may be fed,
But inattention gazes evermore,
Dreaming their future and bolting the door.
It's alright now Ganga, hard times are past,
Which whittled your waves, come hither infuse
All of the plains with your life giving dews,
Glimmering prisms of intricate hues.
Dear dust of the dhama which blesses our shoes,
Your glories uncaptured by volumes of books,
On whose countance each devata looks,
May they cast their sweet influencing eyes,
That green grass may thrive on nectar showers,
And purple your face with jubilant flowers.
Bring the rath cart and earth pigment dyes,
For Jagannatha Yatra cheering all men,
Kadamba, Champak and Bakula Sweet
To deck the chariot.
Punnagas, and the Kovidara, fine
With butterflies standing as if painted,
Kundas and Kurabakas with white flairs:
Tell Kantakini her dates should be spread,
And Malati blossoms dew dropped like tears,
But of joy, for that separation-curse
Which brought us to our knees,
Has become a blessing to our surprise.
Ohe! Whilst we were trapped by our decrees
Writhing in those false-ego blankets, curl'd,
We whispered self-fulfilling prophecies,
Mayhap our friends we will remain beside
Or drift seperately around the world;
These their chilly morning, those warm inside
These dancing madly, those making gold,
Breaking miopy, ascending the Mount
Just see our lifeline and finally behold;
That paramahamsa speaking the truth.
Just as Dolphins swim in Ganga uncouth
Weep no more, Vidyapithis weep no more,
For actually we're not separated,
Spaced though we be by some land or by shore,
Each night the sun sets below the sea bed,
And yet every morning returns ahead,
And glints his rays, and wakes us once more,
Casting out darkness from the vault of sky:
So we may say farewell, but not goodbye.
By the mercy of him who taught the waves
Of bhakti and carried us all along,
With Nectar pure speaking, (our hearts he laves),
He revived our sense of what's right and wrong,
And so he joined us by inseprable love.
Together, left, right, below or above,
Regardless of any varieties
We are with him, and with his glory move,
So wipe off the tears from each of your eyes.
Come out of the darkness, to light implore;
For as the rabbit moon reflects offshore,
So in a simple heart he also could
Enough is said, it should be understood.
Thus spake the rustic sage sufficient thrills,
While the dirt road court'd his convey,
He rang out the kartals with dext'rous skills,
With Krishna in mind, he chanted his way:
And Surya enamel'd now all the hills,
And now was sunk into the Bengal bay;
Then last, as first, converted black to blue:
Tomorrow to start a journey anew.
